10 Least Read Entries on How NOT To Write About Music (February 2020)

Vira Talisa Dharmawan

These are all drawn from the last six months on this blog, five from the last two months.

Sigh.

1 (-) How NOT to write about music – 147. Vira Talisa Dharmawan
I have had cause to comment on my delight on the way YouTube algorithms can work in my favour, but man. This is a delight. Laid back Indonesian pop with a slight jazz inflection that goes for a walk on the beach and turns its shoulder just when you think you might say hello.

2 (-) How NOT to write about music – 105. Georgia
This is boss. This is banging. This is heavy metal. This is my frontal ear lobe, distorted out of shape by the sullen repetitive beats. This is Cristina. This is a (train) ride to nowhere. This is one too many late nights out spent shimmering in a dislocated spotlight, propped up by the bravado brought on by too much alcohol. This is knowledge. This is fantasy.

3 (-) How NOT to write about music – 115. Sarah Blasko
Gorgeous space. Gorgeous voice, too. Here, have a taste.

4 (-) How NOT to write about music – 117. Remember Sports
This makes me want to trace elephants, tumble down the aisle with a ring of commuters holding my hands, cartwheel across infinity and scream into the silence. This music makes me miss whole forbidden areas of Australia. This makes me to dance the street, chant the underground, race the fading taillights.

5 (-) How NOT to write about music – 154. Bloods
Just glorious rock’n’roll like I believed it should always be played… by females (and the occasional man). Just glorious, straight up.

6 (-) How NOT to write about music – 120. Victoria Monét
Everyone saying its a low budget video but their clothes probably cost more than my house

7 (-) How NOT to write about music – 136. Kim Petras
A good song is a good song; if you give me a couple minutes more I could nail the songs below remind me of; maybe it could be a capsule game for you instead – write in and join the community!; any problem I have with the idea of power ballads and soft rock long since evaporated and I feel all the happier for this

8 (-) How NOT to write about music – 148. Tom Waits
Not so much a blog entry, more a game of Spot the Connection.

9 (-) How NOT to write about music – 123. Låpsley & DJ Koze
Lifted out of my Great Pop Mixtape November 2019 for a little more emphasis, a little more oomph, a little less conversation a little more action on this cold wet miserable grey cold (have I mentioned the temperature yet?) Tuesday lunchtime.

10 (-) How NOT to write about music – 151. U.S. Girls
There is a sense of urgency, isolation, regret, no release, a late Seventies shuffle, honey-sweet vocals all the more disturbing for their honey-sweetness, a sax solo at the close.

How NOT to write about music – 136. Kim Petras

Kim-Petras-2019

Soft rock by any other name.

I do not have a problem with this: a good song is a good song; if you give me a couple minutes more I could nail the songs below remind me of; maybe it could be a capsule game for you instead – write in and join the community!; any problem I have with the idea of  power ballads and soft rock long since evaporated and I feel all the happier for this; my aesthetic choices do NOT need to define me as a person, not if I choose not to let them; her lyrics are sung so straight-faced it begins to feel like parody (c.f. Legally Blonde 2) which I am sure is part of the intention; her synths are squidgy; as are her videos; post-Billie Eilish her music seems to be taking a more Poppy-ish turn, which sounds to me ill-advised cos she ain’t no fucking Goth that’s for sure; maybe I should not be using my Pat Benatar filter here but; just great, great pop. Doesn’t everyone want to live out their fragile Disney princess fantasy? I am not saying this to try to reinforce hetero-normative standards.

(This next part lifted from YouTube.) In a recent interview, Petras said that she doesn’t want people to flock to her due to her identity — she wants them to flock to her for her music.

“I just hate the idea of using my identity as a tool,” she told HuffPost. “It made me the person I am and that’s a big part of me, but I think music is about your feelings and your fantasies and it goes deeper than your gender or your sexuality.” The singer added that she is proud of her identity and wants to bring more visibility to the transgender community, but she has something else that she wants to prove as well. “I think the ultimate goal for me is if a transgender person can be known for anything but being transgender,” she said. “There are still too many people who think being transgender is very freaky. And they think you can’t live a happy life and try to tell their kids not to transition because they’re afraid their life will be harder.”

(better)

(newer)

(Older, and the most wonderful – Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ for the Millennial generation.)

There again, I always felt Paris Hilton was vastly underrated as a musical and style icon. Uh, this statement shouldn’t be examined in any depth… I suspect it could be torn apart in a nano-second.

Here. Have some Robyn.